Indane-1,3-Dione: From Synthetic Strategies to Applications

Indane-1,3-dione is a versatile building block used in numerous applications ranging from biosensing, bioactivity, bioimaging to electronics or photopolymerization. In this review, an overview of the different chemical reactions enabling access to this scaffold but also to the most common derivatives of indane-1,3-dione are presented. Parallel to this, the different applications in which indane-1,3-dione-based structures have been used are also presented, evidencing the versatility of this structure.

NLO-active Y-shaped ferrocene conjugated imidazole chromophores as precursors for SHG polymeric films

New Y-shaped ferrocene conjugated imidazole chromophores were prepared and fully characterized. The Y-shaped structure was confirmed by the single crystal X-ray diffraction technique. The chromophores show interesting second-order nonlinear optical (NLO) properties in solution, as determined by the Electric-Field Induced Second Harmonic generation (EFISH) technique. Remarkably, the trifluoro substituted compound 3 is characterized by a high μβEFISH value and has good potential as a molecular building block for composite films with Second Harmonic Generation (SHG) properties. For all compounds, the dipole moments and frontier orbital energies were calculated by the Density Functional Theoretical method.

Quinoxaline-Containing Nonfullerene Small-Molecule Acceptors with a Linear A2-A1-D-A1-A2 Skeleton for Poly(3-hexylthiophene)-Based Organic Solar Cells

We used the quinoxaline (Qx) unit to design and synthesize two nonfullerene small-molecule acceptors of Qx1 and Qx1b with an A₂-A₁-D-A₁-A₂ skeleton, where indacenodithiophene (IDT), Qx, and rhodanine (R) were adopted as the central donor (D), bridge acceptors (A₁), and terminal acceptors (A₂), respectively. Qx1 and Qx1b contain different side chains of 4-hexylphenyl and octyl in the central IDT segment to modulate the properties of final small molecules. Both small molecules show good thermal stability, high solubility, and strong and broad absorption spectra with optical band gaps of 1.74 and 1.68 eV, respectively. Qx1 and Qx1b exhibit the complementary absorption spectra with the classic poly(3-hexylthiophene) (P3HT) and the high-lying lowest unoccupied molecular orbital energy levels of -3.60 and -3.66 eV, respectively. Polymer solar cells based on P3HT:Qx1 showed a high open-circuit voltage ( V_oc) of 1.00 V and a power conversion efficiency (PCE) of 4.03%, whereas P3HT:Qx1b achieved a V_oc of 0.95 V and a PCE of 4.81%. These results demonstrate that the Qx unit is also an effective building block to construct promising n-type nonfullerene small molecules to realize a relatively high V_oc and PCE for P3HT-based solar cells.

Random terpolymer with a cost-effective monomer and comparable efficiency to PTB7-Th for bulk-heterojunction polymer solar cells

A new random terpolymer PTB7-Th-T2 was designed and synthesized for high performance PSCs by incorporating a significantly lower-cost 2,2′-bithiophene monomer to the famous PTB7-Th skeleton.

Ferrocene–quinoxaline Y-shaped chromophores as fascinating second-order NLO building blocks for long lasting highly active SHG polymeric films

The first example of a Y-shaped ferrocene quinoxaline derivative with high and stable SHG response in polymeric films is reported.

Indolizino[5,6-b]quinoxaline Derivatives: Intramolecular Charge Transfer Characters and NIR Fluorescence

Indolizino[5,6-b]quinoxaline derivatives (1 a and 1 b) with a push-pull structure were prepared to show intramolecular charge-transfer properties. Compounds 1 a and 1 b are strongly fluorescent in aprotic solvents while symmetrical derivatives (2 a and 2 b) were non-fluorescent. The π-expanded α-α linked dimer (10) of indolizino[5,6-b]quinoxaline 1 b was serendipitously obtained to show NIR absorption over 800 nm and the fluorescence edge reached to 1400 nm.

Novel donor–acceptor polymers based on 7-perfluorophenyl-6H-[1,2,5]thiadiazole[3,4-g]benzoimidazole for bulk heterojunction solar cells

Three polymers with 7-perfluorophenyl-6H-[1,2,5]thiadiazole[3,4-g]benzoimidazole as a building unit were synthesized for BHJ solar cells, and a PCE of 1.92% was obtained.